Pastel Azteca Recipe - Budin Azteca, or Mexican Lasagna | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Course: lunch, Main Course

Cuisine: Mexican

Servings: 8 servings

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

SAUCE

• ▢ 4 dried guajillo, colorado or ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
• ▢ 1 white onion, quartered
• ▢ 3 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• ▢ 1 cup tomato puree
• ▢ 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
• ▢ 1 sprig fresh epazote (optional)
• ▢ Salt
• ▢ 3 tablespoons lard or oil

CASSEROLE

• ▢ 18 corn tortillas
• ▢ Oil for frying (optional)
• ▢ Butter or oil for greasing the pan
• ▢ 1 pound shredded chicken or cooked ground meat
• ▢ 6 poblanos, Hatch or Anaheim peppers, roasted, peeled, seeded and cut into strips
• ▢ 1 cup corn kernels
• ▢ 4 ounces cotija, anejo or feta cheese, crumbled
• ▢ 1 pound Chihuahua, Oaxaca or mozzarella cheese, grated
• ▢ 1/2 cup Mexican crema, or sour cream

SAUCE

• Put the dried chiles in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Cover the bowl to let them rehydrate.

• Get a comal, griddle, flat top or cast iron pan very hot, and char the quartered onion and the garlic cloves. You want them nicely blackened. When they are, chop roughly and put them in a blender.

• Add the rehydrated chiles to the blender, along with all the rest of the sauce ingredients, except for the lard. Puree well. If your blender is only so-so, you might want to push this through a sieve to remove any stray seeds or bits of skin. That's optional.

• Get the lard hot in a saucepan and then fry the sauce, stirring constantly to incorporate the fat. Drop the heat to a bare simmer and let this cook 10 minutes or so, then turn off the heat.

OPTIONAL TORTILLA STEP

• Heat about 1/4 inch of oil in a pan until it hits about 350°F. Fry the tortillas for about 30 seconds or so — enough to stiffen them up a bit, but not enough so they are actually stiff like tostadas. I start checking them at about 15 seconds. You want semi limp. Set the tortillas on a cooling rack.

BUILD THE PASTEL AZTECA

• Preheat the oven to 400°F.

• Butter or oil a standard casserole pan, about 9×13 inches or thereabouts. lay down a thin layer of the sauce. Line the casserole with 6 tortillas. Spread some meat evenly over the top. Then add the corn and strips of roasted green pepper.

• Sprinkle a layer of cotija cheese, then crema, then shredded Chihuahua or Oaxaca cheese. Top with another layer of tortillas, then sauce, then repeat with the meat, vegetables and cheese. Finish with the remaining tortillas.

• Spread the remaining cotija cheese, drizzle some more crema, and sprinkle the last of the grated Chihuahua cheese over the top. You can add some black pepper here if you'd like. Bake for 20 minutes, until the cheese starts to brown. Let the pastel azteca sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Keep in mind this is the full-on, Sunday supper version of pastel azteca. See below for time-saving hacks.

Time Saving Hacks

• You can use canned green chiles. Or frozen.
• If you don’t know how to roast green chiles, here’s a great tutorial.
• You can use canned enchilada sauce, or even canned tomato sauce.
• Literally any cooked meat will work. I used ground venison. Just make sure to chop or shred it small.
• I use frozen corn when fresh is not in season.
• Thin regular sour cream with a little buttermilk, milk or cream to get you closer to the real thing.